[rating=9.00]
It’s clear pretty early on that We Are X is not your typical music documentary. It starts four days before a big reunion concert for the band X Japan in Madison Square Garden, following their creative center, Yoshiki, on various press junkets and radio interviews. While we see the band prepare during its massive rehearsals, there’s a lingering sense of dread over the possibility that they might not pull off such a massive spectacle.
It isn’t until the narrative criss-crosses its four-day timeline with stories from the band’s past, told mainly through Yoshiki, who is the bands lyricist, drummer, and pianist, that We Are X starts to reveal itself as much more than a story about a band. It’s a story about the act of creativity itself, and the toll it takes on individuals, physically and spiritually. “Art is combat,” Yoshiki says at one point, a sentiment echoed by what seems like endless trips to the doctor for his health (worn down by a lifetime of performing), and his musings about his life earmarked by tragedy, and how it shaped him and his music.
Director Stephen Kijak, who directed 2010s Stones In Exile, has a kind of sixth-sense for telling stories like this. While he opts to let the interviews and archival footage serve as the film’s narrator, he seems to know just on instinct when to let the music speak for the band, and more importantly, when to let the silence speak for the moment.
For a bit of context, X Japan is one of the biggest, most influential bands in Japanese history. In their three-plus decades, they’ve only released a handful of records, but have sold more than 30 million albums over the course of their career. A mixture of heavy metal and symphonic balladry, Yoshiki’s interest in New Wave helped push the band to become cornerstones of the Visual kei movement, an Eastern-equivalent to Glam Rock.
With their music and their looks, X Japan’s impact on the conservative Japanese society is considerable, and they remain one of the most popular bands in the world, despite the fact that they’ve never found mainstream success in Western countries.
Kijak manages to capture the band’s history, tragedies, break-up, and reformation inside of his 95 minute film, which he spent more than a year with in post-production before first showing it to the world at The Sundance Film Festival in January of this year. The director has likened his past projects as a kind of mix-tape for these bands, a handmade cut of his favorite tracks made to appeal to both the uninitiated and dedicated super-fans.
In a microcosm for the band’s career, We Are X has stormed through the festival circuit throughout the year, winning over new fans while making some profound statements about both the trappings and liberations of living life as an artist. More than a movie about a band, it’s a documentary that has its own creative soul, one that empathizes with Yoshiki, whose own story is inseparable from that of X Japan’s.
It’s the kind of experience that doesn’t just leave you with a desire to indulge in your own creativity, but makes it seem like your outright duty as a human being to do so. A towering work in the genre of music documentaries, We Are X proves itself to be a humbling, tragic, heartwarming, and ultimately redeeming account of the very nature of artistry itself.
We Are X is getting a limited theatrical release starting today. Check out the movie’s website to find out if it’s playing at a theater near you.
